DRM ONLY ever affects paying customers, ergo DRM is always unethical malware.

Also, let’s never forget how Ghostwire Tokyo had Denuvo patched IN over a year after release.

That article completely misses the forrest for the trees.

It’s a complete game. It was created with vision, passion, love, and complete creative freedom. It has a great story and interesting characters. It provides lots of player agency. It is unflinchingly candid, mature, and uncensored. Your choices, actions, and inaction ACTUALLY MATTERS. There is no DRM. There are no live service strings. You can play alone and/or with friends. There are no strangers or PvP to ruin your game. And yes, there are also no micro-transactions.

The lesson that BG3 offers isn’t just one thing… it’s a LOT of things. But the best way to sum it up is: it’s a great game and it treats players/customers with respect.

Yep. Congress gave the U.S. Secretary of Education the right to do it. But the terrorist party and their illegitimate puppets in SCOTUS decided that, no, a Constitutional law passed by Congress was not valid because... reasons. Can't let those "libs" ever enact something that is popular, fair, legal, and beneficial...

So yes, everyone should blame SCOTUS and the GOP because they are solely responsible for putting us all in this horrible position.

"If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy." - David Frum

I am so happy for them and proud of them. This is the correct response to unnecessary layoffs or any other worker abuse. I hope more people in the industry will follow their example!

“People won’t let us install our totalitarian dictator, so we think it’s time to try straight-up mass murder.” - Republicans

Spent a few hours trying to fix the broken ultrawide support. Eventually, the good old hex edit fix for aspect ratios on the EXE did the trick. After that, the FOV was messed up, but the game doesn't have an FOV slider (or HDR, or DLSS)... so eventually I managed to fix that with a custom ini.

The next few hours was spent shooting pirates like I was playing Far Cry in Space, and struggling with the game's horrifically designed UI, menus, and inventory. So far, I am feeling very angry about the game. Like we were flat-out lied to about what the game was. There is no exploration. There's barely even "space". You just teleport from map to map shooting pirates... with a little scanning creatures and mining rocks mixed in. I don't understand how anyone is okay with this.

Absolutely nothing. No amount of money or threats or “perks”. I work in software and my entire career has been built on flexible, mostly-remote work; particularly creating & leading remote, geographically distributed teams. I get the best talent no matter where they are, and use tools like Slack to work seamlessly in real-time and asynchronously across many disparate time zones. This wasn’t some new thing for me when COVID hit, this is how I’ve operated for more than 20 years.

I don’t mind going places for specific purposes: visiting clients, classified/sensitive discussions that can’t be transmitted, on-site work (like installations, research, etc), or team-building events like lunches, dinners, etc… but under no circumstances will I waste my time commuting to some specific ”office” daily just because. I am an efficiency expert and I will not tolerate having my time or my teams time wasted by incompetent, out-of-touch multi-millionaires that don’t realize the 80s ended 30 years ago.

Remember, Firefox is great and has no dependency on upstream Google code.

Use Firefox.

Mostly. Actors will now get residuals based on performance metrics of their shows, rather than based on the subscriber counts of the service itself (which is what the guild was originally fighting for). I think that's fair and good for everyone - actors, studios/services, and customers. Actors get rewarded for successful shows, studios will not have to choose between deleting an existing show from existence or cover residuals that are more than the show is worth, and customers lose less content as a result.

Once of the reasons so many shows have disappeared lately is because a "royalties based on service subscribers" provision existed since the last strike, meaning even shows that aren't successful can cost a service a lot of money to keep around. So instead, they just remove them from existence.

"I'm old, stubborn, don't know how to manage remote teams, and have no interesting in learning." - Todd Howard

Every time this guy opens his mouth, it sheds so much light on Bethesda's decades-old problems.

Edit: I'm looking forward to seeing what Ted Peterson, Vijay Lakshman, and Julian Lefay do with The Wayward Realms. These three are the actual fathers of The Elder Scrolls. Todd has been shitting on their legacy since Redguard.

All right wing policies, ideals, and platforms are bad. The right is about consolidated vertical authority (monarchy, fascism, authoritarianism, etc) and the left is about distributed horizontal authority (democracy, socialism, egalitarianism, etc).

But in the US, where all politics is controlled by two ruling right wing parties, only one of those parties is SO FAR TO THE RIGHT that they pose an immediate existential threat to life, liberty, freedom, and societal stability.

I do not support the DNC, but I vehemently oppose the GOP. They are not the same. Don’t assume people support the DNC just because they are trying to prevent the GOP from establishing the Fourth Reich.

I only see you trying to hold accountable the "right-wingers"

Yes, because I am a leftist and there are no leftist political parties in the US. Anyone that thinks the DNC is remotely “leftist” has been swayed so far to the right that they can’t imagine there’s an entire world of politics on the other side of the DNCs milquetoast center-right authortiarian-lite platform.

“Why are these leopards eating our faces!?”

There is nothing to "clarify" - Unity is a toxic, predatory company with toxic, predatory leadership and developers and investors need to get out as quickly as possible.

Is there any chance WV can elect a senator that isn’t a far-right fascist, regardless of the letter next to their name?

We should not be helping Israel kill more people. You never support terrorism, and when the response to terrorism is more terrorism, you don't support that. Other than sending humanitarian aid to regular people caught in the middle, this is something we should stay the hell out of.

I actually paid for Reddit Premium about as long as I remember it being around. I cancelled the instant they announced the intent to paywall and censor the API.

I’m generally fine with paying for services I use and enjoy, if I consider the price reasonable. I spent a lot of time on Reddit and considered it reasonable for avoiding ads.

They’ll never see a cent from me again, not from ad revenue or otherwise. I blocked Reddit’s URLs on my PiHole just to be sure.

They are not being bought by regular people like you - they are being bought by investment companies, hedge funds, and filthy rich investors... all for the the sole purpose of turning them into rentals.

By turning them into rentals, they keep supply low which increases prices... which prevents people from buying, keeping rental demand high, which also lets them charge exorbitant rental rates. They are gaming both sides of the system to ensure that us peasants can be milked dry over a fundamental human need.

One of the big reasons to have picked Unity over Unreal in the first place was because Unity was royalty free. Unreal Engine, despite being absolutely amazing, is not.

To preserve your existing business model, Godot just makes the most sense for many former Unity developers, and I say that as an unapologetic UE zealot.

Makes good business sense

I would never call such horrifically predatory tactics “good business sense.” It’s abuse of market position and should draw the ire of antitrust regulators, as well as make their product a major business risk for any new projects.

Let’s not forget that Unity recently merged with a malware company, so borderline-illegal predation is their entire business strategy.

Everyone: "Games are getting WAY too expensive."

Out of touch executive: "Games are too cheap! Why are our sales going down? I promised the shareholders infinite growth!"

TL;DR; Illegitimate court makes illegitimate rulings on illegitimate cases. How does this happen? Rampant, widespread, bald-faced corruption.

This is California. 60% of the population will readily support this. The other 40% think that murder is one of their Constitutional freedoms. Thankfully, they are the minority and can continue to move themselves to Florida, Tennessee, Texas and other minor 'murican ethnostate dictatorships. The rest of us rational freedom-loving Californians bid them adieu.

I'm a parent and have plenty control over what my kids can access. Most devices have parental controls, and for everything else there is Pi-hole. I don't need anyone else to do my parenting for me, especially when it means that I, the parent, get treated like a child.

"Oh please, daddy gubment, can I see this website?"

No. Not gonna fly.

Steam Deck's secret sauce is the software. Steam Deck's software isn't all OSS yet (it's NOT the same as the publicly available SteamOS), so the alternatives are all running on Windows which... is not good (especially for a handheld).

Honestly, just get a Steam Deck. The "power" differences are just not meaningful at that form factor right now.

Phrased another way: "Republicans once again hold a gun to the countries head."

"Let us cut some fingers off!" they demand. "If you don't, we'll shoot the country right in the head!"

And, of course, this will all somehow be painted as the Democrats fault.

Not a chance, and definitely not time soon.

There are certain indicators for enshittification, and Epic (like Valve) doesn't meet any of them.

1. It is a privately held company with no plans for IPO and no dealings with venture capitalists. Conversely, Unity made their IPO in 2020 under the auspices of a notorious EA villain.
2. It is still lead by one of it's founders.
3. Said founder is very famously big on equity and pro-developer & pro-consumer policies.

Now, you may not like Epic for some reason, but they are currently a very stable, reliable, and trustworthy company that is focused on sustaining their business through dedication to quality and reputation. Personally, I respect & trust them every bit as much as I respect Valve.

I like how you assume that I’m a proponent of another right-wing political party solely because I pointed out that a different one is a violent, fascist, criminal, terrorist organization.

Right-wingers are masters of both escalation and creating long-term, multi-generational consequences.

What is so hard to understand about “murder bad, apartheid bad”?

Similar background, but I was always strongly encouraged to read scripture myself. When I started pointing out how the scripture was pretty clearly in opposition to most popular Christian dogmas, it wasn't the dogmas that were seen as the problem, it was ME for pointing them out.

Scripture is pro-abortion, it does not condemn homosexuality in any way, it does not contain even the concept of hell, nor does it does not support the concept of heaven as an afterlife destination; but it does demand you always treat others with respect and dignity (even your mortal enemies!) and that you worry about your own failings rather than others. You are to live by example, not edict or meddling.

Modern "Christians" are not followers of Christ, but enemies. They spit on his teachings and the scriptures. They are an army of anti-christ cultists.

"And I will tell them bluntly: You were never one of mine. Get out of here, you criminal trash." - Matthew 7:23

Who at AMC decided hateful, bigoted propaganda was ever okay to begin with? During Pride Month, no less.

It should not take backlash for a company to not participate in spreading hate and bigotry.

I can't believe how this guy just keeps opening his mouth and telling us how Starfield used to be fun and interesting, but that they removed all that stuff until all that was left was this sterile Far Cry clone that feels more like a chore than a game.

I'm already mad at how unbearably boring the game is, and the more Todd Howard talks about the development, the more angry I get. It's callously just rubbing salt in an open wound.

This kind of thing is the reason I've started moving completely away from Microsoft platforms, including Windows. Microsoft is getting more and more invasive and aggressive pushing advertising onto people in their own private spaces, and that is unacceptable.

Since I'm a PC gamer first and foremost, I don't use XBox... and after this, I won't. Ever. This was just MS dipping their toes in to see if they could get away with it.

Thankfully, with Valve continuing to rapidly improve Proton, just about any Windows game runs on Linux now with very little elbow grease. No Microsoft necessary.

"If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy."

• David Frum

At this point, even if they backpedaled completely - even if they fired spez - it's far too little and far too late. Third party apps are gone. The trust is gone. Folks like me deleted their content and their accounts. There is no going back.

Agreed. I believe in a strong public domain and militantly protected fair use; AFAIC, all unaltered AI output should be considered public domain. Direct human authorship (or "substantially transformative" modification) is the benchmark for where copyright should apply.

Unity "Vadering the deal" is enough reason that no business should choose Unity for anything whatsoever going forward. They are now a huge legal and financial risk to any business endeavor at all.

No matter how much they relent, developers should not get complacent and trust that things will stay this way. Unity will go back on the offense once the outrage quiets down a little. Don't do it. Transition now before you end up in a worse situation.

The technology is cool. I will say that.

But Meta/Zuckerberg is squandering it. There is a huge disconnect between the price of thing (OVER $500) and the value proposition. It's bad at gaming. It's still less powerful than even current-gen smart phones, let alone modern consoles or gaming PCs... and what little gaming content is out there makes that abundantly clear. Asgard's Wrath 2 does it no favors given those realities. And what are the uses beyond gaming?

Exercise could be a compelling value proposition, but they aren't leveraging even that obvious marketing angle. "You can do your supernatural workouts!" How many people know what that is? I do, but ask a rando on the street. They have no idea. And what are the other options beside Supernatural workouts? Oh, nothing? Nothing for my stationary bike? Nothing for a rowing machine? Nothing for treadmills? With all those funds, they are not exploring the practical applications at all and the product is failing as a result. Instead, Zuck STILL hasn't given up on his Metaverse/Horizons MMO idea.

And that's before we even get into Meta/Facebook's inherent creepiness as a company.

It's just shorthand for "unauthorized access to a digital system". There could be no password at all and it would still count as "hacking". The difficulty of gaining access isn't really relevant, legally speaking.